Breaking News: Hoyer & McLeod Added to Front Office

Theo Epstein has made his first additions to his staff. Jed Hoyer and Jason McLeod have officially been announced as the Cubs Executive VP/General Manager and Senior VP of Scouting and Player Development. The Cubs will send a player to be named later to San Diego as compensation.

McLeod will be in charge of Oneri Fleita and Tim Wilken. His title will not be assistant GM, as originally reported. As of now Randy Bush remains the assistant to Hoyer.

On a side note- Bruce Levine tweeted today that Aramis Ramirez is open to returning to the Cubs now that Theo is in charge.

With the front office set, it's time to start talking about what moves it should make. We'll have breakdowns of managerial and free agent options this weekend.

Breaking News: Epstein to the Cubs

It's official, Theo Epstein is the President of Baseball Operations of the Chicago Cubs. Check back tomorrow for all the details.

Update Saturday 10:30am
Theo Epstein has joined the Chicago Cubs on the team's President of Baseball Operations. The compensation to the Red Sox has not yet been announced, but the two sides have reached an agreement as to the process that will be taken. The compensation issue will be worked out soon. If the compensation process does not work, Bug Selig will make the final decision.

With the World Series going on, the official announcement will be made on Tuesday, an travel day for the Cardinals and Rangers. Neither club will have further comment until that time.

A few days after Epstein's press conference, several more announcements are expected to be made. Padres general manager Jed Hoyer and assistant GM Jason McLeod are expected to join the Cubs organization as the GM and assistant GM respectively. Hoyer is set to sign a five year deal with a Cubs. The compensation to San Diego is expected to be a low level minor leaguer.

Crane Kenney will remain with the Cubs organization, but his title will change to President of Business Operations.

That's it for now, but we'll have much coverage of this story this weekend and early next week.

Cubs/Padres Game 2 Postponed

Tonight's Cubs game against the Padres scheduled to start at 7:05 at Wrigley has been postponed due to the weather and field conditions. A day/night double header is now scheduled for tomorrow.

The Cubs will send Matt Garza to the hill for the first game and James Russell will start the nightcap tomorrow. Tickets for tonight's game will be honored for the night game tomorrow. The Tyler Colvin bobblehead promotion will also carry over to the nightcap.

I'll keep you posted!

Live Q&A with Andy Masur

Former Cubs' broadcaster Andy Masur, who now is a part of the San Diego Padres broadcast team, will join me at 12:30 central time. Andy and I will discussed broadcasting, the Cubs, the Padres, and everything baseball. If you have a question for Andy, you can include it in the comments of this post, email it to cubsblogmailbag@aol.com, or just submit it during the live chat. Enjoy the chat!

Cubs Pull Out of Peavy Deal

Well after all that talk about San Diego right handed pitcher Jake Peavy, the Cubs have decided to pull out of the sweepstakes today. Here's quotes from Cubs GM Jim Hendry on the Peavy deal:

• "We knew going in we could line up tomorrow with a very good pitching staff"
• "It was one of those rare occasions that we thought it was worth going in to kick the tires and see if it was possible. As the week progressed, the volume of the depth of what we'd have to give up became the sticking point for me"
• "As the week went along, I could tell Kevin wasn't going to lower his stance on the talent which is his right. If he has the intention of keeping Jake then he has the right to get the best deal he can, or he has the option of keeping him."
• "I think the world of the pitcher and he would've made us better, but we were dealing from stength all along."
• "As much as adding Peavy would've been a great acquisition, for the good of the organization, I didn't think, today moving foward, it was the right thing to do."
• "He's a great pitcher, I would never close the door on trying to acquire him. He's one of the marquee guys in the game."
• "I never got comfortable with the volume of players it would take."
• "Besides the contract your taking on, you're also in a position where you're going to have to spend more money to replace some of the pieces you have, whether it's this year or the next. As the general manager of the club, you don't look at trying to make it work under the wire for '09."
• We just didn't get off the plane from Chicago and say, 'This is Jake Peavy week.'"

Padres GM Kevin Towers said "He said he's got other things going on, I respect his position.

So the Peavy saga comes to an end. Personally, I'm wish we would have got Peavy to build the Mega Rotation but I'm glad it wasn't streched out any longer. It was starting to get like the Brian Roberts thing last year. I trust that Hendry will do everything he can to make the team better for 2009.

Update: Peavy Talk

A quick update on Peavy-
MLB.com's Corey Brock says that Padres GM Kevin Towers told him that we should know one way or the other on the Peavy trade by the end of the meetings. Towers thinks a deal will take a 4th team. DeRosa and Marquis could be hand ups, especially Jason's contract. Kevin Hart, Josh Vitters, and Felix Pie are some of the names Corey Brock mentioned.

Accourding to Cubs.com a possible 3 team deal has been proposed that would send the following players to the following teams.
Phillies Get: DeRosa
Padres Get: Marquis, Jason Donald, and either J.A. Happ or Carlos Carrasco, Pie, and Vitters
Cubs Get: Peavy

Also the Cubs could loose Donald Veal in the Rule 5 Draft Tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.